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http://www.democracynow.org/2012/9/17/occupy_sunset_park_99_solidarity_takes

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Tonight, Democracy Now! co-host Juan González will be speaking at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. at 6:30. And we are continuing our Silenced Majority community and college tour around the country. We came back here for this first anniversary of Occupy but then are flying to Michigan. Tuesday at noon, I'll be speaking at the Wealthy Theatre in Grand Rapids, Michigan for a benefit for the Grand Rapids Community Media Center. Tuesday night at 6:00 p.m., I'll be at Columbia College in Chicago, Illinois, and on Wednesday we'll be broadcasting from Chicago. On Thursday, I'll be in Madison, Wisconsin, speaking at the Barrymore Theatre at 7:00 p.m. for a benefit for the community radio station WORT. And on Friday at noon, I'll be in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation; Friday night at 7:00 at Hayward, Wisconsin, a benefit for the Ojibwe station WOJB in Flat Creek Inn & Suites; on Saturday, at the Wesley United Methodist Church in Minneapolis, 6:00 p.m.; on Sunday at the Brooklyn Book Festival at 4:00 p.m. You can visit our website, tour.democracynow.org, for more information on this 100-city tour, as we travel around the country up to the election and beyond.

But we're continuing our coverage of the Occupy Wall Street right now, one year after it began, with a look at how the movement has reverberated here in one New York City community. For the past two years, residents of the heavily immigrant neighborhood of Sunset Park in Brooklyn have refused to pay rent on their apartments in three buildings where the same landlord has refused to ensure safe living conditions.

In the first year, they had little success getting help from local politicians with their complaints about faulty electrical wiring, repeated rodent infestations and a 10-foot-high garbage pile in the basement.

This summer, members of Occupy Sunset Park got word of the rent strike when they saw banners that residents hung on the outside of their buildings. They contacted the residents, have since tried to assist them as they resolve many of the concerns themselves. Now there's even talk of the tenants taking ownership of their buildings by forming a tenants' associations or an affordable housing corporation.

Well, for more about this case study of how Occupy Wall Street has spread into communities and taken root, we're joined by three guests. Sara Lopez is with us, longtime resident of Sunset Park, Brooklyn. She's been organizing with tenants in the building where she lives to improve the living conditions there, with help from Occupy Sunset Park. Dennis Flores is with us, an organizer with Occupy Sunset Park. And Laura Gottesdiener is a freelance journalist who's been covering the Occupy Our Homes movement both in Sunset Park and beyond, from Chicago to Minneapolis, to Chattanooga, Tennessee, author of the forthcoming book, A Dream Foreclosed: The Great Eviction and the Fight to Live in America.

We welcome you all to Democracy Now! We're going to begin with Dennis Flores. Talk about a year ago and what Occupy meant to you, and then where you took it.

So, it's-what's been making me really excited one year going into, you know, the anniversary of Occupy Wall Street is seeing more and more people actually embrace direct action as a solution for the problems that they face. So, whether it's saying, you know, "I'm not just going to ask my landlord to do something about this, because I recognize he's in foreclosure and he's a slumlord," it's saying, "I'm not going to pay my rent, you know, and I'm going to organize a work day." You know, they had a work day at the apartment-at the buildings about two weeks ago. They cleaned up so much. And we're now, you know, organizing a work day to clean out actually the garbage in the basement. This is something the city is not doing. This is something the landlord is not doing.

And I'm seeing that in Detroit, where I'm seeing 65-year-old grandmothers, you know, refuse to leave their home and lie down in the offices of their mortgage companies, saying, "I'm not leaving this home." I'm seeing that in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where people are saying, "We're not leaving this public housing unit." You know, and we're seeing that especially in Chicago and especially because of the teachers' strike in Chicago. I think that's one of these hotbeds of direct action. We're seeing incredible work by the Chicago Anti-Eviction Campaign and other sort of homeless communities saying, "We don't recognize the bank's ownership of these abandoned-or these vacant houses. Bank of America can't just slap a sign on half of the, you know, like the houses in our neighborhood and say, 'You can't go in,'" when more and more people are being displaced by this capitalist system. So they're actually going in, rehabbing these houses that are destroying their neighborhoods and taking them over, creating not just, you know, a place to live, because housing is a human right, but also reappropriating something that shouldn't be owned by the banks right now.

Well, I want to thank you all for being with us, Dennis Flores and Laura Gottesdiener, Sara Lopez. Laura's book that will soon be published is called A Dream Foreclosed: The Great Eviction and the Fight to Live in America.

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Occupy Sunset Park: 99% Solidarity Takes Root in Brooklyn Community Where Tenants Stage Rent Strike

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For the past two years, residents of the heavily immigrant neighborhood of Sunset Park in Brooklyn have refused to pay rent on their apartments in three buildings where the same landlord has refused to ensure safe living conditions.

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72% renters in Sunset Park

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Sunset Park Tenants Celebrate Victory as Dumpster Arrives at Buildings and Garbage Removal Begins

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Landlord neglect worse for tenants when property is in foreclosure

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Landlord neglect worse for tenants when property is in foreclosure

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"Lopez, who has lived in her building for 40 years, explained the landlord was always negligent, but conditions in the buildings have gotten worse now that the three properties are in foreclosure."

- OccupyWallStreet.org

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Relevant rental reform models and initiatives 

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Relevant rental reform models and initiatives 

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City Life/ Vida Urbana http://clvu.org/

Take Back the Land: http://www.takebacktheland.org/
Causa Justa/Just Cause
http://www.cjjc.org/

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A video of Rent Strikers occupying Assemblyman Ortiz's office

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A video of Rent Strikers occupying Assemblyman Ortiz's office

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Longtime tenant Sara Lopez spoke by phone to one of Ortiz's assistants

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Mobilization, visual protest and occupation of Assemblyman's office

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Mobilization, visual protest and occupation of Assemblyman's office

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"On July 5, the affected tenants and various community members and allies, held a rally to stress the urgency of the repairs...the rally was immediately followed by a march to New York State assemblyman Felix Ortiz’s office...." - The Occupied Wall Street Journal

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http://Ortiz was  elected by Sunset Park residents and personally promised Sara and other tenants that he would work to resolve their unsafe housing dilemma. After weeks of no action, the tenants occupied his office and demanded a meeting last Monday.

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"We don't just want a new landlord...we want to own the building ourselves" - Sara Lopez

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http://"We don't just want a new landlord," Lopez said today. "We want to own the building ourselves."

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"Properties converted to co-op or vacant properties used to build a new co-op allow low-income people to remain in their units who might otherwise be forced out as rents climb"

-Policylink.org
(Pros, Cons and strategies attached)

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Fan used to cool-down the building's fuse box

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17-year old floor-to-ceiling garbage in apartment building basement

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Occupy Sunset Park allies itself with Rent Strikers

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Occupy Sunset Park allies itself with Rent Strikers

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Other allies include Trinity Lutheran Church and La Casita Comunal de Sunset Park

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Occupy Sunset Park. 1,003 likes · 1 talking about this. We are the 99%! ¡Somos el 99%! 我们是99%。

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"Rent Strikers Hope to Form Co-Op to Solve Housing Woes"

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"Rent Strikers Hope to Form Co-Op to Solve Housing Woes"

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"In late August, the [Strikers and Occupy Sunset Park] reached out to the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board..[which helps tenants]... take ownership of their buildings by forming tenants' associations or affordable housing corporations." -DNAinfo.com NY

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SUNSET PARK - Rent-striking residents are seeking to take matters into their own hands by converting their 46th Street buildings into co-ops.

For more than two years, the tenants have refused to pay rent at 545, 553 and 557 46th St., citing unsafe living conditions such as faulty electrical wiring, repeated rodent infestations, a 10-foot-high garbage pile in the basement and a super who allegedly punched and elbowed a tenant in the head during a July building inspection.

"Lights going out every summer. No heat in the winter. Bed bugs, mice," said Riccey Trelles, 20, who has lived in the building her whole life. "This building looks like it's been destroyed."

The buildings' landlord, Orazio Petito, is on Public Advocate Bill de Blasio's list of the city's worst landlords with 253 infractions, and he is also in foreclosure on the three buildings. The super, Isrrael Espinoza, was escorted from the premises by cops Aug. 21 after a judge slapped him with an order of protection during an arraignment for the alleged attack.

And last month, the owner of the building's mortgage, Seryl LLC, asked a judge to wrest the properties from Petito and place them in receivership.

"They get passed from slumlord to slumlord, and none of the issues have been addressed," said Dennis Flores, an organizer of Occupy Sunset Park, which closely allied itself with the strikers after it learned of the movement this spring.

The strikers and its Occupy supporters are now seeking to solve matters themselves. In late August, the two groups reached out to the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board, a New York-based nonprofit that has helped low-income residents in the Lower East Side, Mott Haven and other city neighborhoods take ownership of their buildings by forming tenants' associations or affordable housing corporations.

Trinity Lutheran Church, located just one block from the rent strikers, has publicly vouched for the strikers and provides a meeting space at a new community center it named La Casita Comunal de Sunset Park.

"They've really galvanized a lot of community support," said Laura Gottesdiener, 25, an Occupy Sunset Park member. "Members of the church, as individuals, have been incredibly helpful."

Pastor Sam Cruz and Associate Pastor Vanessa Cardinale have attended almost all of the residents' rallies and press events, including the inspection where Cardinale said she saw Espinoza attack resident Francisca Ixtilico.

Ixitilico, 49, was hospitalized after the incident.

"It's a natural outgrowth of our ministry and theology," Cardinale said. "It's about walking with people as they demand better conditions, whether it's with bankers or with their landlords."

The strikers' fight for better living conditions, she asserted, is a "human rights issue."

The rent strikers and their Occupy supporters expect to be back in housing court Sept. 28, when Petito and Seryl are next scheduled to appear before a judge for the foreclosure proceedings.

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Rent-Strikers Hope to Form Co-Op to Solve Housing Woes

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The tenants have refused to pay rent at three Sunset Park buildings for more than two years.

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Victimization of Renters: Super punches 49-year old striking tenant

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Victimization of Renters: Super punches 49-year old striking tenant

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"The experience I had, it traumatized me. I still have a lot of fear"

- Francisca Ixtilico, resident of 545 46th Street

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http://"The experience I had, it traumatized me. I still have a lot of fear,  Read more http:

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Occupy Sunset Park and organizer Denis Flores is arrested, as he defends 46th street tenants

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Sunset Park Rent Strike 07-19-2012 Tenant attack and arrests

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-tenant from one Petito's buildings on 46th Street

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Eastern Capital Group, LLC

"When it comes to commercial financing, Eastern Capital Will get your Deal Done"

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Astoria Federal Savings:

"Putting People First"

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Personal, Commercial & Business Banking | Webster Bank

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Sterling provides personal & commercial banking solutions to communities and businesses throughout the New York Metro area. Click here to learn how can we help you!

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NEW LANDLORD: Seryl LLC is new owner of properties

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NEW LANDLORD: Seryl LLC is new owner of properties

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Company, formed in February 2012, that is now owner of building's debt/mortgage.

Will another slumlord take the place of Petito?

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 Renters of Sunset Park's 46th Street go on Strike

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 Renters of Sunset Park's 46th Street go on Strike

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"Lights going out every summer. No heat in the winter. Bed bugs, mice," said Riccey Trelles, 20, who has lived in the building her whole life. "This building looks like it's been destroyed." -- DNAinfo.com

A list of some violations: unsafe electrical wiring, frequent blackouts, a broken boiler, lead paint, mold, cockroaches,rats, and bed bugs

(Translation for photograph: Watch out! The three Buildings are in danger of fire. We could die!)

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557 46th Street
Equity: -$3,798,513

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Systemic landlord neglect and foreclosure

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Systemic landlord neglect and foreclosure

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On 46th street, landlord neglect and poor conditions exacerbated by foreclosure

http://goo.gl/maps/wGwYd

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553 46th Street
Equity: -$3,964,977

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545 46th Street
Equity: -$3,907,407

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A Map of properties in pre-foreclosure in Sunset Park: A metric for systemic landlord abuse and neglect?

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A Map of properties in pre-foreclosure in Sunset Park: A metric for systemic landlord abuse and neglect?

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The majority of these properties are 2-4 family residences, which implies that they are rental properties or two family owner occupied
http://goo.gl/maps/vLDH0

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Landlord for neglect foreclosed properties # 553, 545, 557 46th Street

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Source: http://tiny.cc/t16ynw